I learned to swim under a train bridge at the Lewis River, a tributary of the Columbia that runs from a cold volcano. I can still taste the fright of losing touch with the sandy bottom. The knifing paws of an anxious dog. The kernels of fresh corn that would fall through the railroad ties.

I also learned to paddle a kayak here. It's a craft that can take a person into places unseen from Interstate 5, which too often defines geography in this part of the Northwest. That first kayak arrived in a duffel bag from Guatemala. A decade earlier, my father's Folbot had carried him along the verdant shores of Lake Atitlan, beneath volcanoes more prone to spitting fire. The old blue behemoth only lasted a few years on the Lewis; it's been replaced by a slim yellow thing of hard plastic, with a steel rudder.

Today's paddle offered all the intrigue of those early ventures into the unknown. Launching in a cold, Valentine's Day rain. A freight train barreling across the bridge overhead. Muffled shotgun blasts, then snow geese rising from thickets of red maple. A lone man on a bicycle atop the dike. Rounding the bend, the prow of a barn at sunset and the sharp stench of manure.

I find tracks on a little beach left alongside mine, I imagine, by fat, dancing raccoons. A rainbow disappears into the dusk. My paddle upsets a beaver looking for dinner. A silent eagle is glowering from on high. From some hidden, riverine world.

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The Society of Professional Journalists Western Washington chapter has named RBM its 2019 "Journalism Educator of the Year." He and other honorees will deliver remarks at the Northwest Excellence in Journalism Awards Party on Monday, July 1, at Optimism Brewing Company in Seattle.